Countries are investing in the US, including in the pharmaceutical and biotech sector – South Korea proves
Yonhap, South Korea, 2007
[“S. Korea picks three new foreign investment zones,” July 17, Lexis] Rein
South Koreasaid Monday it designated three additional special regions for foreign direct investment (FDI) in an effort to revive sagging overseas companies' interest in the country. Foreign companies investing in Yeosu and parts of Osong and Gumi will be exempt from rent and corporate taxes for five to seven years, and regional governments will offer additional tax benefits, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said. According to the ministry, the Yeosu zone on the south coast has secured a US$200 million deal to build a marine recreational resort. Yeosu will host the 2012 World Exposition. Osong, about 130 kilometers south of Seoul, was named an FDI zone because it has signed contracts with four U.S. and Canadian companies that planned to invest a total of $190 million into biotech, nanotechnology, environmental materials and pharmaceuticals. Gumi, an industrial city about 260 kilometers south of Seoul, has won eight contracts from Japanese manufacturers and U.S. and French electronics companies worth $10 million to $50 million each.
B. Link –
IPRs are a prerequisite for foreign investment
Richard Rozek, Senior Vice President at National Economic Research Associates, 2000
[“The Effects of Compulsory Licensing on Innovation and Access to Health Care,” The Journal of World Intellectual Property, Volume 3, No. 6, November, pp. 889-917, http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1747-1796.2000.tb00158.x, OCRed] Rein
Opponents of protecting IPRs claim that domestic investment will not increase. They claim that multinational firms will merely transfer the additional profits earned as a result of the improved environment for IPRs to their home countries, depriving local governments of tax revenues and local communities of investment spending. In fact, protecting IPRS is a prerequisite for foreign direct investment (FDI). As Dalton and Serapio state: “Protection of intellectual property remains the major concern for most companies contemplating the location of their R&D facilities in emerging markets such as China and Russia. Other concerns include a weak research infrastructure, economic turbulence, and political instability in some of the emerging rnarkets.’’35 Protecting IPRS appears to be a necessary, but not the only, condition for FDI in a country. Mansfield concluded that: “The strength or weakness of a country’s system of intellectual property protection seems to have a substantial effect, particularly in high-technology industries, on the kinds of technology transferred by manyU.S.firms to that country.”36 Countries with weak protection for IPRS get older technologies. Moreover, there is a statistically significant negative relationship between U.S. direct investment in countries between 1989-1992 and the perceived weakness of their intellectual property laws. Mansfield found a ten-point increase in perceived weakness of intellectual property laws is associated with a US$ 200 million a year decrease in U.S. investment in manufacturing.37 More recently, Xu and Chiang found a statistically significant result “that weak patent protection may be one major impediment in LDCs [less-developed countries] to international technology diffusion.”38 Compulsory licensing is associated with a weakening of protection of IPRs. <13-14>
Foreign investment increases the amount of capital—equipment, buildings, land, patents, copyrights, trademarks, and goodwill—in the host economy. The increase in the quantity and quality of tools for labor's use in converting one set of goods (labor and other inputs) into another (finished output) raises labor productivity and GDP. Because about two-thirds of GDP goes to labor as wages, salaries, and fringe benefits, rising output means higher wages or more employment. Thus, foreign investment raises labor productivity, income, and employment. Workers are better off with more capital than with less and are usually indifferent to the nationality of the investor.
History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea {[7]} launches nuclear weapons uponJapan and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China — whose long-range nuclear missiles (some) can reach the United States — attacksTaiwan. In addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly. Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin that is almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all is to launch immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and massively as possible. As the studies showed, rapid escalationto full WMD exchange occurs. Today, a great percent of the WMD arsenals that will be unleashed, are already on site within the United States itself {[8]}. The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades.
A. Uniqueness –
Countries are investing in the US, including in the pharmaceutical and biotech sector – South Korea proves
Yonhap, South Korea, 2007
[“S. Korea picks three new foreign investment zones,” July 17, Lexis] Rein
South Korea said Monday it designated three additional special regions for foreign direct investment (FDI) in an effort to revive sagging overseas companies' interest in the country. Foreign companies investing in Yeosu and parts of Osong and Gumi will be exempt from rent and corporate taxes for five to seven years, and regional governments will offer additional tax benefits, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said. According to the ministry, the Yeosu zone on the south coast has secured a US$200 million deal to build a marine recreational resort. Yeosu will host the 2012 World Exposition. Osong, about 130 kilometers south of Seoul, was named an FDI zone because it has signed contracts with four U.S. and Canadian companies that planned to invest a total of $190 million into biotech, nanotechnology, environmental materials and pharmaceuticals. Gumi, an industrial city about 260 kilometers south of Seoul, has won eight contracts from Japanese manufacturers and U.S. and French electronics companies worth $10 million to $50 million each.
B. Link –
IPRs are a prerequisite for foreign investment
Richard Rozek, Senior Vice President at National Economic Research Associates, 2000
[“The Effects of Compulsory Licensing on Innovation and Access to Health Care,” The Journal of World Intellectual Property, Volume 3, No. 6, November, pp. 889-917, http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1747-1796.2000.tb00158.x, OCRed] Rein
Opponents of protecting IPRs claim that domestic investment will not increase. They claim that multinational firms will merely transfer the additional profits earned as a result of the improved environment for IPRs to their home countries, depriving local governments of tax revenues and local communities of investment spending. In fact, protecting IPRS is a prerequisite for foreign direct investment (FDI). As Dalton and Serapio state: “Protection of intellectual property remains the major concern for most companies contemplating the location of their R&D facilities in emerging markets such as China and Russia. Other concerns include a weak research infrastructure, economic turbulence, and political instability in some of the emerging rnarkets.’’35 Protecting IPRS appears to be a necessary, but not the only, condition for FDI in a country. Mansfield concluded that: “The strength or weakness of a country’s system of intellectual property protection seems to have a substantial effect, particularly in high-technology industries, on the kinds of technology transferred by many U.S. firms to that country.”36 Countries with weak protection for IPRS get older technologies. Moreover, there is a statistically significant negative relationship between U.S. direct investment in countries between 1989-1992 and the perceived weakness of their intellectual property laws. Mansfield found a ten-point increase in perceived weakness of intellectual property laws is associated with a US$ 200 million a year decrease in U.S. investment in manufacturing.37 More recently, Xu and Chiang found a statistically significant result “that weak patent protection may be one major impediment in LDCs [less-developed countries] to international technology diffusion.”38 Compulsory licensing is associated with a weakening of protection of IPRs. <13-14>
C. Impact –
1. Foreign investment is key to the economy
Mack Ott, Economist with the Barents' Applied Economics Group, 2002
[“Foreign Investment in the United States,” The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Enc/ForeignInvestmentintheUnitedStates.html] Rein
Foreign investment increases the amount of capital—equipment, buildings, land, patents, copyrights, trademarks, and goodwill—in the host economy. The increase in the quantity and quality of tools for labor's use in converting one set of goods (labor and other inputs) into another (finished output) raises labor productivity and GDP. Because about two-thirds of GDP goes to labor as wages, salaries, and fringe benefits, rising output means higher wages or more employment. Thus, foreign investment raises labor productivity, income, and employment. Workers are better off with more capital than with less and are usually indifferent to the nationality of the investor.
2. Economic collapse causes extinction
T.T. Bearden, Director of the Association of Distinguished American Scientists, 2000
[http://www.seaspower.com/EnergyCrisis-Bearden.htm]
History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea {[7]} launches nuclear weapons upon Japan and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China — whose long-range nuclear missiles (some) can reach the United States — attacks Taiwan. In addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly. Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin that is almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all is to launch immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and massively as possible. As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange occurs. Today, a great percent of the WMD arsenals that will be unleashed, are already on site within the United States itself {[8]}. The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades.